Bought sealed iPhone from ebay - 4 months later it's blacklisted

trewpof

As you can imagine, I'm absolutely furious about this.

It was a brand new and sealed iPhone 13 Pro Max that I bought back in mid March this year.

About two weeks it stopped working, walked into an Apple store where the advisor told me it's been blacklisted by EE and it could be for a number of reasons; the phone's been reported as lost, stolen or original phone owner has defaulted on their contract (so not paid their monthly contract bill I imagine).

eBay are being useless because it's outside their 30 day moneyback guarantee.

The seller has stopped responding.

I contacted EE who confirmed it's been blacklisted but they won't give the specific reason. The checkmend report does show that it's been blacklisted but it doesn't show there's anything in the police database to conclude that it's been reported as stolen/lost. I'm guessing most likely the ebay seller has stopped paying their contract bill, quite confident in saying this given they've stopped responding.

I've got no issues going down the small claims court route but it's annoying that it takes about 6-9 months for the whole process to conclude.

What's my best course of action here? 

bris

Its an old trick. Person walks into store, gets the most expensive phone on a contract for very little upfront cash,.

They then sell the phone for good money and the rest you now know.

Your only real option is to take it on holiday abroad somewhere and sell it where it's not blacklisted.

You can go to the small claims court and win but getting paid will be as likely as EE suddenly getting paid.

You will be throwing good momey after bad.

soolin

For small claims you will need the full geographic address of the seller , do you definitely have that and have you checked that they are still there? 

pulliptears

I had something similar a few years ago, only they reported it stolen which in turn blackisted it.
In my case I'd collected from the sellers house and still had the address so he was more than a bit surprised when I showed up on his doorstep and insisted he either refund me or 'unblacklist' the handset.

It was a few years ago now, so I cant recall which network, but whichever it was said they could see the IMEI used (i.e mine) was the one that had been using the phone for the last six months.  Seller told the network he'd made a mistake and 'accidentally' reported the wrong phone stolen (yeah, right) and the network, based on that constant IMEI data and speaking to the seller, transferred the handset to my name and we left.

If the seller has reported the phone as stolen and you have used the same IMEI from purchase it does go some way to proving they sold you the phone.  The networks can see this information.  Of course, the fly in the ointment now is GDPR, which didn't exist when I had my issues 

trewpof

soolin said:

For small claims you will need the full geographic address of the seller , do you definitely have that and have you checked that they are still there? 

I do, I managed to obtain it from one of their current listings, was pretty easy to piece together.

Do you have any advice for something that could work before going to small claims? I'm happy to go down that route but I know it's a long one, especially so since I'm £900 out of pocket.

mikrt

Did you pay with Paypal? Aren't they 180 days to claim?

mattyprice4004

Small Claims is your only route if you didn't use PayPal. 
Unfortunately you bought from a private seller to save a few quid, and this is one of the risks - it's a very common scam and honestly not worth the saving. 

In future I'd only buy from large businesses directly, you have a lot more protection. 

m0bov

Get another SIM card in it for another network??

RogerBareford

pulliptears said:

I had something similar a few years ago, only they reported it stolen which in turn blackisted it.
In my case I'd collected from the sellers house and still had the address so he was more than a bit surprised when I showed up on his doorstep and insisted he either refund me or 'unblacklist' the handset.

It was a few years ago now, so I cant recall which network, but whichever it was said they could see the IMEI used (i.e mine) was the one that had been using the phone for the last six months.  Seller told the network he'd made a mistake and 'accidentally' reported the wrong phone stolen (yeah, right) and the network, based on that constant IMEI data and speaking to the seller, transferred the handset to my name and we left.

If the seller has reported the phone as stolen and you have used the same IMEI from purchase it does go some way to proving they sold you the phone.  The networks can see this information.  Of course, the fly in the ointment now is GDPR, which didn't exist when I had my issues 

The IMEI number is the unique number number of the device which does not change (it's actually illegal to change it) and this is how they blacklist phones.

So when they said they could see you had been using it constantly they were probably reffering to the ICCID number of your sim card as being used in the device since you got it.

m0bov said:

Get another SIM card in it for another network??

All UK networks check the same database for blacklisted phones so it wouldn't work on any network.

pulliptears

RogerBareford said:

pulliptears said:

I had something similar a few years ago, only they reported it stolen which in turn blackisted it.
In my case I'd collected from the sellers house and still had the address so he was more than a bit surprised when I showed up on his doorstep and insisted he either refund me or 'unblacklist' the handset.

It was a few years ago now, so I cant recall which network, but whichever it was said they could see the IMEI used (i.e mine) was the one that had been using the phone for the last six months.  Seller told the network he'd made a mistake and 'accidentally' reported the wrong phone stolen (yeah, right) and the network, based on that constant IMEI data and speaking to the seller, transferred the handset to my name and we left.

If the seller has reported the phone as stolen and you have used the same IMEI from purchase it does go some way to proving they sold you the phone.  The networks can see this information.  Of course, the fly in the ointment now is GDPR, which didn't exist when I had my issues 

The IMEI number is the unique number number of the device which does not change (it's actually illegal to change it) and this is how they blacklist phones.

So when they said they could see you had been using it constantly they were probably reffering to the ICCID number of your sim card as being used in the device since you got it.

m0bov said:

Get another SIM card in it for another network??

All UK networks check the same database for blacklisted phones so it wouldn't work on any network.

That makes sense. 
The handset had been an unwanted upgrade so our sim was the first to go in it, that was what they could see, that no other had used it and we'd used it constantly from turning the thing on.  Whether that detail could be obtained now though with GDPR I don't know, but if it could surely it proves a constant user of the handset.

Lesson learned though, I've never bought a second hand/unwanted upgrade again.  Way to risky.  If it wasn't for the fact I'm far too lazy to clear out my text messages I wouldn't have had an address to go back to.

RogerBareford

pulliptears said:

RogerBareford said:

pulliptears said:

I had something similar a few years ago, only they reported it stolen which in turn blackisted it.
In my case I'd collected from the sellers house and still had the address so he was more than a bit surprised when I showed up on his doorstep and insisted he either refund me or 'unblacklist' the handset.

It was a few years ago now, so I cant recall which network, but whichever it was said they could see the IMEI used (i.e mine) was the one that had been using the phone for the last six months.  Seller told the network he'd made a mistake and 'accidentally' reported the wrong phone stolen (yeah, right) and the network, based on that constant IMEI data and speaking to the seller, transferred the handset to my name and we left.

If the seller has reported the phone as stolen and you have used the same IMEI from purchase it does go some way to proving they sold you the phone.  The networks can see this information.  Of course, the fly in the ointment now is GDPR, which didn't exist when I had my issues 

The IMEI number is the unique number number of the device which does not change (it's actually illegal to change it) and this is how they blacklist phones.

So when they said they could see you had been using it constantly they were probably reffering to the ICCID number of your sim card as being used in the device since you got it.

m0bov said:

Get another SIM card in it for another network??

All UK networks check the same database for blacklisted phones so it wouldn't work on any network.

That makes sense. 
The handset had been an unwanted upgrade so our sim was the first to go in it, that was what they could see, that no other had used it and we'd used it constantly from turning the thing on.  Whether that detail could be obtained now though with GDPR I don't know, but if it could surely it proves a constant user of the handset.

Lesson learned though, I've never bought a second hand/unwanted upgrade again.  Way to risky.  If it wasn't for the fact I'm far too lazy to clear out my text messages I wouldn't have had an address to go back to.

I always find it a bit funny when people put "unwanted upgrade" as a reason they are selling a device. It makes no sense because phone companies don't randomly send people a new phone at the end of the term, people need to actively ask for a new phone or other wise they can move to a cheaper contract.

So people must be pretty silly to seek out an upgrade when they don't want it and then just sell it on.